


The Silent Pause

by Jen425



Series: A Hundred Heroes Welcome You Home [54]
Category: Kamen Rider - All Media Types, Kamen Rider Build, Tokusatsu
Genre: (because Nanba), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bonding, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:20:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27101848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jen425/pseuds/Jen425
Summary: It’s the breaks that bring with them a unique sense of exhaustion.
Relationships: Sawatari Kazumi & Takigawa Sawa
Series: A Hundred Heroes Welcome You Home [54]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1782238
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	The Silent Pause

**Author's Note:**

  * For [C-chan (1001paperboxes)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/1001paperboxes/gifts).



> So this is… my first Build fic. I hope you like it!
> 
> Sawa and Kazumi are some of my favs.

The strange thing about war is that the down time can bring a deeper exhaustion than the fighting.

When you’re out there in the thick of it, with people that rely on you, there just isn’t time for things like contemplations or a bone-deep feeling that nothing you do matters or will ever be enough.

It’s different now, of course. Grief instead of the knowledge of his friends, who had followed him into war and needed him to be able to get them out of things.

Without them knowing that he knew. Knew their names and their lives and their  _ stupidity _ , truly. Why had they followed him?

He had done this for everyone on the farm.

Kazumi had become a weapon.

They’d still been so alive, though. Alive in a way he’d found difficult after the experiment. He’d hated it because he couldn’t,  _ still _ can’t understand that sort of bright eyed loyalty when he’d had to watch their fields shrivel and their numbers go red with the knowledge that  _ he was in charge _ .

And then they’d died, one by one.

But yes, down time. It’s  _ horrible. _

It brings about thoughts like this, all while just lying on a bench in the park.

In the middle of an active war zone.

Alone.

“Kazumin?”

…okay, not alone. The name is enough awareness for Kazumi not to fully bolt upright, he does turn to the speaker.

Ah, Sawa.

“Hello,” he offers. “What are you doing somewhere like here?”

Sawa shrugs, sitting down next to him.

“I could say the same to you,” she says. “Wanting to be alone with your thoughts?”

“Absolutely not.”

Sawa laughs.

“That’s understandable,” she says. “It’s… strange, I admit, that concept. I mean, being alone with my thoughts.”

Kazumi turns to her, trying very hard to be casual.

He… hasn’t really properly talked to her, since this new part of the war began in earnest. He doesn’t know what to say, after all. Nanba had made her into a completely different kind of weapon, after all.

The thought of it all is still boggles his mind, just a bit. How quickly things managed to go further to hell.

He’d always known war was coming, with how his country had faired. He just hadn’t expected exactly how bad it would be.

“I don’t think I’ve been alone in a long time,” he says. “Different way, I guess. I always had my workers.”

Sa way turns to him in kind.

“You had other workers, right?” She asks. “Besides…”

“Yes.”

It’s all Kazumi is willing to say, at the moment. Any more reminds him of the fact that he can’t reach them.

“To my knowledge, they’re as fine as anyone else in Hokuto right now.”

He has to believe that. He may have chosen to fight here, but he doesn’t know what he’d do if they really were all gone because of him.

“If they weren’t, they’d be used against you.”

Sawa blinks at her own words and looks away once more. Kazumi does the same.

“Sorry,” she says. “Force of habit. I know how Nanba works as much as any other Child still, I guess.”

Kazumi shrugs.

“There are many ways one can be turned into a weapon,” he says. “I know better than to fault anything but the war for what it creates.”

“I’m older than the war,” Sawa says.

“That just makes Nanba worse,” Kazumi replies.

“I see.”

A silence defends, from there. Not painful and yet not clean. Nothing is without the unspoken now, Kazumi finds.

“You know, if we don’t want to be alone with our thoughts, there’s plenty of room at Nascita,” Sawa points out. Kazumi hmms. She does have a point.

“Are you headed there?” He asks.

“I was considering it,” Sawa says. “I was considering other things, too.”

Kazumi stands.

“You can continue to consider,” he says. “But I’d say you have a point.”

He waits a few moments, for her to consider the unspoken offer. He doesn’t have to wait long before she stands.

“And thank you,” he says, still not turning. 

“For what?” Sawa asks calmly, and her tone could just as likely be clueless as it could be coy.

“Nothing in particular,” Kazumi replies.

He doesn’t have to turn to know the woman is smiling behind him.

They do end up at the cafe, of course.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
